Repeated exposure to threats teaches us to be hyper-vigilant. When we have no control of these situations, they teach us that there is nothing we can do about it. In other words, learned helplessness. Our experiences teach us how we view ourselves and our outer world. And as par for the course, how much space we can take up and what we can (or cannot) do in our outer world. Where learned helplessness is concerned, we have an over-generalized outlook that keeps us stuck. Dr. Martin Seligman calls it the “3 P’s of Pessimism”. They are: Personalizing “It’s my fault”; Pervasiveness “I can’t do anything”; Permanence “It will always be this way”.
If you identify with the 3 Ps of Pessimism, then at least one toxic person was in your life long enough to teach you these self-defeatist beliefs. But we can’t just snap our fingers and adopt better beliefs. Why? Well, for one thing, there is our biological science, and it’s even more stubborn than our cognitive programming. Our experiences shape more than just our beliefs. They also program our nervous system, our hormones, and our brain chemistry. In fact, fatigue, blunted emotions, a lack of motivation, and a hijacked freeze response are just a few examples of how our bodies are stuck in learned helplessness.
If we believe “It will always be this way” and “I can’t do anything about it,” we are simultaneously saying, “learned helplessness is my only hope for feeling safe.” Our bodies believe this too. That’s why when we do anything to challenge this programming, we get overwhelmed with self-doubt and panic. Our bodies think that something bad will happen “and then it will be all my fault!” Just for challenging the nervous system’s status quo.
The Brain and Body Stuck in Learned Helplessness
Below is a chart of our hormones from low, ideal, to high. Of course, we have more than five hormones. These just happen to be the ones most affected by learned helplessness. In the middle column, you’ll see how they are meant to function at ideal levels. But check out what happens in the low column. This is what happens when we have hormone deficiencies. Low levels of dopamine, cortisol, and serotonin are “the big three” tells of our bodies stuck in learned helplessness. And speaking of dopamine, notice where it says “(social isolation)” in the low column. That’s because nothing will drop our dopamine levels faster than social isolation. What’s one of the major “tools” the Cluster B disorders (Trauma Glossary 1) use on their victims? Besides gaslighting (also in Trauma Glossary 1). They isolate them! This unfortunately explains how it’s so highly effective.
With the Brain and Nervous System
Below are the three major sections of our brain and where our ANS (Autonomic Nervous System) and vagus nerve are activated. Both the ANS (in red) and vagus nerve (in blue) have two major systems each. And they operate in different sections of the brain as “help mates”.
It also represents how the brain and nervous system are designed to work for us when in a threatening situation. We work our way from top to bottom. First, we call for help (top of the brain with the vagus nerve’s VVC, or ventral for short). If no help arrives, we fight or we run (mid-section of the brain with the ANS’s sympathetic nerve). If we can’t fight or outrun the threat, we give up, collapse, and fall to our freeze response (bottom section of the brain with the ANS’s parasympathetic nerve and the vagus nerve’s DVC, or dorsal for short).
Learned Helplessness on the Brain and Nervous System
Now let’s see the breakdown of this system in learned helplessness. Once our social engagement system has been repressed (through isolation), we won’t think of calling for help. Then it creates other problems. We start to avoid others as we see our world through the lens of negative noticing. And then we lose our sense of purpose. We come to believe “I am not seen, I am not heard, and no one cares.” Once we truly believe we are without help, things really start to snowball. We become hyper-vigilant, believing “I must keep my guard up, the next threat is right around the corner.” But what happens when we are powerless against the threat and we believe no one cares anyway?
Feeling Powerless Creates “I Can’t” Thinking
When we feel powerless, we don’t want the threatening presence to see or hear us. And so, we learn to take up as little space as possible. We tell ourselves, “Stay small and don’t make a sound.” But repeated exposure to situations like this do more than just make us feel powerless. Our biological science takes root. It’s gotten so accustomed to feeling the fear and then realizing there is nothing it can do about it, that it starts sending us into freeze response on autopilot. Even long after we leave our abusive parent or partner, the spine may bend and the shoulders curl inwards when startled. Both are examples of the body shielding its most vulnerable parts, the neck and torso. And that’s just one way the body can fall into freeze response because it still believes it’s helpless.
Without making the connection between our body’s influence on the mind, we move from feeling powerless into believing that we are powerless. And once we believe that we are powerless, we doubt our capabilities of taking on life’s challenges. The whole world looks like a potential threat and instead of giving ourselves permission to try, we tell ourselves “I can’t”. And so, we do to ourselves the very thing the abusive parent or partner did to us. We isolate ourselves and give up on thriving in the world. Because “for some mysterious reason,” the future is a little scary if we think about everything we must do to thrive in it.
Learned Helplessness and Catastrophizing
Catastrophizing is what I refer to as False Prophet Syndrome. We imagine the worst-case scenario and then believe it’s definitely going to happen. Especially if one little thing goes wrong. Last week, I wrote an article on how to negotiate with our False Prophet (here) and it gave me a lightbulb into its relationship with learned helplessness. There seems to be a link between our False Prophet and being too comfortable with the predictable. Even when the predictable is harmful.
I’ll show you what I mean. Take a look at the image below. What do you see?
Well, thank goodness that this is a staged picture and the child is just a talented (and very cute) model. But we can use our imagination with what the picture is conveying. Notice how the child is hiding under the bed and his toy is out of reach. Obviously, that toy will make him feel better, but he dares not reach outside his “safety zone” to get it.
And so it is when we want to improve our lives. The risk looms larger than the reward. The False Prophet thinks that we are pulling it out from under the bed and straight into danger. It does not believe thriving is possible and that’s where the painful fear rooted in self-doubt is coming from.
Making Mountains Out of Risks and Molehills Out of Rewards
Have you ever heard the phrase, making a mountain out of a molehill? It means taking a small problem (molehill) and seeing it as a huge problem (mountain). With learned helplessness, we tend to magnify the risk and minimize the reward. We see what we want and then, if it requires too many steps to get it, or takes us too far outside our not-so comfortable “comfort zone” to get it, the “risk” gets magnified into a mountain. Then, the reward looks miniscule by comparison. We begin asking ourselves if what we want is really worth all that trouble.
It’s natural to feel safe with the familiar because we know how to navigate it. It’s also natural to feel some trepidation with the new and unfamiliar. After all, we have to make mistakes before we figure out what works and what doesn’t. And then we can navigate it with ease. But the breakdown in learned helplessness is that it never learned that mistakes were anything less than dangerous. So, no wonder we catastrophize when we imagine what could possibly go wrong. And as a side note, if you follow the six steps for negotiating with our False Prophet from last week, you will likely discover many fears that are rooted in feeling inadequate.
As long as we live by the 3 P’s of Pessimism, we will always believe “it will always be this way” and “there is nothing I can do about it.” That’s why, if faced with two choices: 1) the uncomfortable that’s familiar or 2) the uncomfortable that’s uncertain, learned helplessness will always choose the first option. Because choosing the second means making mistakes and then “It’s all my fault” (for daring to think we have any right to improve our lives).
Resilience and Confidence Destroy Learned Helplessness
The reason we tend to catastrophize is because we lack confidence in our ability to recover from mistakes. This is the key reason we stay stuck in learned helplessness. We were denied the opportunity to develop resiliency. But resiliency is how we handle whatever life has to throw at us. It’s how we recover from our mistakes and unexpected setbacks. Resiliency is how we build confidence. Because when we are confident, we believe in ourselves and our ability to handle life’s challenges. And once we develop both resiliency and confidence, we create a powerful foundation for thriving instead of mere survival in life.
But this seems daunting to anyone with learned helplessness. That’s because both resiliency and confidence are NOT tools. They are skills we must work on and build if we want to get the most we want out of life. And I hope you do work on them immediately. I write these weekly articles because I think you deserve to achieve every dream, even if you feel you don’t. So, here is the part where I load you up with tools and resources so that you can work on your problem the best you can. Are you ready?
Further Reading
Tools for Learned Helplessness are in Master Toolbox 1. But don’t just scroll down to the tools for that one. Learned helplessness happens to be one of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts types of problems. Meaning, many other ongoing problems can fall under its ‘umbrella” So, in other words, one great hack for learned helplessness is discovering the problems behind it and using the tools for managing them.
I listed many many possible ongoing problems from Trauma Glossary 2 in this article, and most include links to Master Toolbox 1 because there are tools for them. In alphabetical order, they are: Avoidance, Catastrophizing, Hyper-vigilant, and Negative Noticing. You might discover even more problems than those I used here. While skill builders might take time, tools will help us manage our problems in real time, so that we can start living life even sooner.
And don’t forget that learned helplessness is also a biological science. So, in Master Toolbox 2, scroll down to section 2 on the nervous system. Then scroll further down to section 3, which are hacks for our hormones. Pay close attention to “the big three”, which is cortisol, serotonin, and dopamine.
Finally, there’s my Reflections x3 Bullet Journaling, which I use to this very day because it has helped me so much with building my own confidence. In last week’s article on catastrophizing, one of the steps for negotiating with the False Prophet was using a calendar so that it has better memories to predict better outcomes. Well, my Reflections x 3 Bullet Journaling is its upgrade, if you’re interested.